A pickup truck is a vehicle in common and popular use today, and includes a cab in which the driver and passengers sit, and a cargo area located behind the cab. The pickup truck is designed for everyday use, and has found increasing use in the area of recreation.
In that segment of the art of recreation having to do with travel and camping, there is an ever increasing use of the pickup truck. Often, these pickup trucks are equipped with special sleeping or living accommodations. The most common of such accommodations is the so-called camper. The camper generally includes a box-like shelter unit which is equipped with sleeping and cooking facilities.
These campers are generally carried in the cargo area of a pickup truck.
While gaining in popularity, such camper/pickup truck combinations have had shortcomings that have somewhat inhibited the popularity and continued growth of the camper industry.
For example, the campers must be large enough to accommodate a person in some amount of comfort, and thus are often large and bulky and may thus adversely affect the handling of the pickup truck. This is especially a problem if the combined unit is to be driven over difficult terrain or in close quarters, such as through dense brush or the like. In an extreme situation, such handling problems may be hazardous.
Recently, several designs have been proposed in order to overcome this shortcoming. For example, a tentlike configuration has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,088,363 which is stored in the collapsed condition in the cargo area of the truck. While overcoming the above-mentioned problem, this design has the serious drawback of having soft camper walls and top in the nature of a tent. Such a tent may be suitable for some uses; however, it is not suitable for all uses, especially those uses in which the combination is to be used in extremely difficult weather conditions, such as extremely cold conditions, extremely windy conditions, or the like.
Other designs have been proposed in which the camper is partially collapsed in the stored configuration and then is raised into the set-up configuration. Examples of such design proposals are: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,145,044; 3,690,719; 4,012,070 and 4,603,901. While these designs provide a camper that can include rigid walls, they have the serious shortcoming of rendering the cargo area essentially useless for any purpose other than as a means for carrying the camper. Such a drawback severely inhibits the advantages of the pickup truck that are making such a vehicle popular.
Still other designs of campers propose to remove the camper entirely from the pickup truck when the camper is not in use. While this overcomes the problems associated with preventing use of the cargo area during camper non-use times, it has the drawback of being extremely inconvenient and onerous to set up the camper, or adapting the pickup truck from its normal mode to get it ready for a camping trip.
Other designs include a camper that is towed behind the pickup truck. Such designs have drawbacks associated with the handling of the unit in difficult terrain and parking it.
Accordingly, there is need for a camper/pickup truck combination that permits the pickup truck to be handled and operated in the manner common to the pickup truck, including the hauling of cargo, when the camper unit is stored, yet will permit the camper unit to include rigid walls and top so as to be amenable to all sorts of weather conditions yet can be erected quickly, efficiently and by one person when desired.